


Paris 'verse

by xsilverxlightx



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-17
Updated: 2011-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-27 10:52:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xsilverxlightx/pseuds/xsilverxlightx





	1. Paris

He’ll say later on that he never gets to have that 2 AM, waiting for a taxi moment and while in the literal sense that is true, right now he’s about to have the closest he’ll get and oh he’ll think it good enough, even better really. The slow path and domestics isn’t for him. There won’t really be a reason for him to sort of lie to the couple except for the fact that he is the Doctor and sometimes the Doctor lies because often enough that’s easier than trying to explain the truth.    
  
He’s in Paris. He landed a few centuries off and even a couple planets from what he intended but it doesn’t much matter at this point. Besides, the TARDIS had alerted him to some sort of strange signal and that’s probably why he’s here. The energy signal he’d picked up didn’t belong in this time and place.    
  
It’s probably nothing anyways, just some Time Agent. They’re always screwing things up after all. He’s not going to pick up their mess. He’s not here for that. He’s… well really he’s here because there’s not really anywhere else he needs to be. He’s been drifting, running from one danger to another. He used to take joy in his successes but lately it just doesn’t compare and a part of him has a death wish, the permanent kind, and is disappointed every time he manages to escape. He shoves his hands into his pockets and turns down a narrow road just as a woman in a blue leather jacket stumbles out of the nearest alley.    
  
He briefly thinks that perhaps she ought to be wearing red since her gaze is fixated on the graffiti that covers an old stone wall. He squashes the fanciful notion. There’s got to be a logical reason for her to be so concerned by the words  _méchant loup_ . She whips around and he hears her breath hitch when she sees him. Before he has time to fully register the catalog of emotions that flicker across her face in that moment she run at him full speed and thrown her arms around him as she all but crashed into him.    
  
He stiffens as he staggers back a step. Once he’s regained his balance he pushes her back a step. There are a million things he thinks he should say.  _He isn’t whoever she thinks he is. He can’t help her. He’s the one she ought to be running from, not a message on a wall._  “You make a habit of stumbling around alleys an’ throwing yourself at the first person to walk by then?” It isn’t what he means to say and it comes off less gruff than he intended.   
  
It earns him a watery laugh and mumbled apology. “Maybe it’s just you,” she replies and something in her eyes makes him think this is supposed to be an inside joke between the two of them.    
  
“Not really the sort to go around hugging anyone, me,” he replies. He does not ask if he is supposed to recognize her. He doesn’t have the strength to hope for some brighter future with this blonde and he knows he doesn’t deserve it anyways.   
  
Her smile fades slightly, doesn’t reach her eyes anymore and it bothers him more than he thinks it should to recognize that haunted look that begins to replace it. She looks young, not a child, but not as old as her eyes. “Maybe one day,” she murmurs, almost too quiet for him to hear but the words send his mind racing. He wants to ask but he doesn’t dare. Her hand slips into his as though it’s the most normal thing in the world. “And I suppose you’re not the sort to end up kissing complete strangers either?” The teasing tone is back and she catches her tongue between her teeth as she grins at him.    
  
“Might do,” he says though he meant to tell her no. He means to warn her off. He’s been known to do a lot of things but that isn’t high on the list and the ones that are would scare her off without a doubt but before he can emend his statement she’s kissing him. It isn’t the innocent teasing kiss he’d expected. It’s desperate and forceful. She’s clinging to his lapels and steadfastly ignoring his lack of response until he has backed her against the wall and kisses back just as hard. He loses himself to the sensation and it is the first time since the Time War that his entire focus hasn’t been on the pain and emptiness. None of that is gone, not by a long shot, but it is the first flicker of hope he’s allowed himself.    
  
He presses tighter against her and he’s dimly aware that he’s gripping her hip hard enough to leave a bruise but she’s not objecting and he isn’t sure he could stop himself if he tried. He’s not entirely sure when it happens but they end up in the alley, her back pressed against the graffiti’d wall and her legs wrapped around his waist as he buries himself in her. She doesn’t speak as she fixes her clothes and despite his vast knowledge of countless languages he can’t think of anything worth saying either.    
  
There’s already a bruise forming on her neck and he notices a slight trickle of blood from a bite mark on her shoulder that causes her to wince as she pulls her jacket back into place. He’s reminded that he’s not much better off by the scratch of his woolen jumper against the scratch marks down his back. Her hand comes up to his cheek, forcing him to meet her gaze. Her hair is tousled and her lips swollen and split from too rough kisses. Her eyes are what startle him though, filled impossibly with understanding and forgiveness and somehow he can’t help but believe it. She draws him close again and kisses him but it’s not like before. It’s overwhelmingly loving. He doesn’t understand how that could be but there is no other way to describe it.    
  
When they finally break apart her eyes are bright with unshed tears. “Everyone deserves a second chance,” she tells him fiercely. All he can do is nod because he finds himself believing her.    
  
He’s never been one for goodbyes but he’s a bit startled that she doesn’t seem to be either. “Who are you?” he asks as she turns back farther into the alley to leave. She stops and walks back to him and slips her hand into his again.    
  
“Just remember what I said, yeah?”   
  
“Not the sort to forget, me,” he replies.   
  
“I’m sorry. I’ve stayed too long. And I’m sure you’ve got your own running to do… It’s going to be fantastic,” she adds as she squeezes his hand before suddenly letting go and stepping back. He doesn’t watch her go. He isn’t surprised when he looks up and she has disappeared. He’s grinning as he heads back to the TARDIS, ready for his next adventure.


	2. Stars

She doesn’t remember when exactly the tradition started but at least once a week her mother drags her out for mother daughter bonding time. Rose never complains. She loves her mum and though she doesn’t for one second feel guilty for the time she spent with the Doctor (except that time they were really only gone a day or two but showed up a year late) she supposes she owes her quite a bit of mother daughter time for having left her alone so often. Before she found out she was trapped in this universe forever she agreed to it so she’d have these memories of her mum once she went back to the Doctor. Now she keeps it up so her family and friends don’t worry about her so much.

One day her mum takes her shopping for decorations for the nursery and dresses for an upcoming Vitex function. She tries to throw herself into the normal activities with the same enthusiasm she’s using for work and her education. It almost works. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t really care whether Jackie buys periwinkle or cornflower blue curtains because Jackie knows it isn’t really that essential either. She isn’t like Pete’s old Jackie. It’s just the thought that she can do everything right and give her son everything he deserves after she had to struggle so hard for Rose that makes her happy. Rose slips off into another aisle as two saleswomen enthusiastically take up the debate, no doubt recognizing them as the Tylers and wanting a good commission. Rose hates the attention that comes with being Pete Tyler’s previously unknown daughter. The papers invent all sorts of ridiculous stories despite the fact that they can’t prove anything. Torchwood set up careful records for her when she first arrived and she never does anything tabloid worthy (except of course for the whole saving the world one alien threat at a time but Torchwood keeps all of that out of the press).

She still gets shit from the bitter veterans and the ignorant new recruits at Torchwood about nepotism. Her work consumes her though and she barely notices what they say anymore anyways. Pete hired a private tutor for her once she was certain she was trapped in this world so she could earn her A-Levels. She gave up quickly on history because things were too different and she secretly didn’t want to forget what she considered the real history but she’d developed an aptitude for the sciences thanks to the countless hours spent listening to the Doctor ramble on and on about anything and everything. She thinks he would be proud of her and that gets her through the bad days.  
It’s when her mum has finally decided on the cornflower curtains that she spots them. She buys three packs. Jackie chooses not to comment and Rose is grateful. She wants to go back to her flat but they still haven’t found anything to wear for the fundraiser. Dress shopping with a five month pregnant Jackie is a truly alarming prospect. She misses having the TARDIS’ wardrobe room at her disposal. It always found the perfect dresses for her. While an attendant is helping her mum she slips away from the woman who is supposed to be helping her to look on her own.

Her breath catches in her throat when she sees the dress and she knows it’s the only one she’ll like. The attendant seems put out when she clutches the hanger tightly and refuses to look at anything else.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Jackie sighs heavily when Rose emerges from the dressing room in the simple but elegant TARDIS blue dress. “…You look lovely,” she adds after a pause, clearly fighting down a complaint about the fact that Rose has taken to wearing that color much too often. Her first purchase when they’d returned from Bad Wolf Bay was a leather coat in the same shade. She wore it like it was her armor, much like her first Doctor had been with his coat. It reminded her of him and she couldn’t help that her mind associated the smell of leather or the brilliant shade of blue with happiness and comfort.  
It takes another hour before her mum has found a dress she likes that fits her. Rose tells her honestly that she looks radiant. This new world suits Jackie and Rose is happy for her, really she is.

Rose turns down the offer to have dinner at Pete and Jackie’s home and instead heads straight back to her flat. She’s had the place for months now but she’s never really bothered to make it feel like home. The office is the only room that looks lived in, filled with textbooks and papers and artifacts from work. She hangs up the dress in the closet before opening the first package of glow in the dark stars. She closes her eyes tight and tries to remember exactly where they should go. She isn’t sure if it’s her imagination or not but it seems like there are less stars here and she wants them lined up the way they’re supposed to be in her real universe. Rose knows she shouldn’t still think of it that way but she’s certain she always will.

She realizes with a star that really, she can’t remember where the stars would be overhead when standing in Council Estate. She can remember the cluster of stars the Doctor pointed to just after the invasion at Christmas when he’d just become her New New Doctor, the constellations her first Doctor and Jack had taught her while the three of them lay side by side under a frozen wave on Woman Wept, the way they’d looked from the viewing deck of Platform One as the world ended and when she’d waited for him for five and a half hours on the space station but that isn’t a cohesive picture. It’s all a blur. A mess she can’t sort out without the help of that fantastic blue box.

It’s all a jumbled mess but she puts up all the constellations she can think of in what she thinks might be almost the right order and somehow it seems right that it is so chaotic. She falls asleep that night as she tries to remember the names of all of them. In her dreams the names continue in a rumbled Northern accent and smooth American one.

On the nights when Pete forces her and the rest of the team to go home after the stars have definitely started to go out, Rose lies in her bed and stares up at them to remind her of what she’s fighting for.

After she runs into her first Doctor in Paris she rearranges those she’d just put up haphazardly to match the night sky she’d seen when pressed between him and the cold brick wall and gasping for breath. She isn’t sure she remembers those pinpricks of light so exactly when so much of that night is still just a blur in her mind but she is immensely grateful once again to the lonely man in the leather coat who gave her the stars, twice now, when she’d had nothing else.


	3. Run

He isn’t thinking about the woman in Paris when he grabs a girl’s hand in the department store basement and tells her to “Run!” It has been quite some time (seven year, ten months, three weeks, four days, and three hours to be more exact, he could be more so but tries not to do so) since that encounter and while that is not long for a Time Lord he finds he remembers less about exactly what she looked like and more just what she’d made him feel. Once they are in the elevator and she’s coming up with theories to explain away the living plastic he supposes there is definitely a lot about the girl that reminds him of her but it is probably just his imagination. There are lots of women with peroxide blonde hair and this girl is much too young and clearly knows nothing about his life. He refuses to acknowledge the hope that maybe one day she could be that woman. He asks her name anyways before he sends her on her way. He will not, no, he cannot drag her into this mess just because she reminds him of someone else. It can’t end well.

He wants to put her out of his mind and while there are lots of other things for him to contemplate, particularly while trying to find the Nestene Consciousness, he cannot help his mind straying back to the way her hand had fit in his. The woman in Paris reminded him to live and he would be forever grateful but she also reminded him how lonely he’d become and he wants (but can’t) hate her for it just a little bit.

He wonders if this isn’t just the universe’s spiteful idea of a joke when the next day he finds himself in the girl’s flat, being chatted up by her mother and only shortly later wrestling the living plastic arm away from the girl’s face. He tries to flee after they crash into the table and she winds up on top of him, unable to avoid flashing back to shoving the woman against the brick wall. When she asks who he is, he gives in just a little to hope and takes her hand. He gives his little speech and ends it with the warning to forget him even though the words preceding all but guarantee the impossibility of that. He likes the symmetry of his parting words with the woman in Paris. He doesn’t know that Rose Tyler runs back to look for him when he’s disappeared just like he whipped around to look for the woman when she did.

When she saves his life, swinging from a chain and winding up in his arms, he is unable to convince himself that she isn’t going to become that beautiful woman. He asks her to travel with him and tries not show how tense he is as he awaits her answer. He hates the idiot clinging to her waist and dragging her down into this boring life as she says she cannot. As soon as he’s gone he contemplates the woman from Paris’ words. He doesn’t think that he deserves a second chance at being happy, but he supposes that he owes the girl a second chance at an extraordinary life, whether she becomes the woman or not.

For the first time in a long time as he sets the coordinates on the TARDIS he finds himself hoping to arrive in front of Rose Tyler and not the woman from Paris. He didn’t mention that it travels in time and really she deserves that second chance to make a more informed decision. He wants a second chance so that he can appreciate that pink and yellow girl without comparing her to the woman in Paris. She is grinning and doesn’t have that familiar haunted look in her eyes. She does not understand him. He does not want to break her but he wants to help her to see. It really is always that dangerous. He takes her first to the end of the world not because he wants to scare her off but because he doesn’t want to get more attached and then lose her when it does become too much. He cannot bear the thought of having to travel alone anymore.

He tries not to make it obvious how tense he is when he asks if she wants to go home. She calls them going for chips a date and he can’t make himself correct her when she grins at him like that with her tongue between her teeth. He isn’t thinking about the woman in Paris anymore. She may have been what he wanted but as Rose Tyler laughs and rests her head against his shoulder he is certain she is exactly what he needs.


	4. Return

The boys insist on going out for drinks that night to celebrate that she'd finally seen the Doctor up close while dimension hopping. Rose isn't planning to tell Mickey and Jake just how close she got to him.    
  
She doesn't really want to be there. She'd rather be at home, curled up in her bed and staring up at the plastic stars that cover her ceiling. Her mind is racing and she doesn't feel like she can or should talk about any of her current thoughts with them. It isn't that she doesn't trust them but she wants to keep these thoughts for herself only. She refuses to meet Owen's gaze and subconsciously tugs the zipper of her blue leather jacket to make sure it's all the way up.   
  
"You okay, babe?" Mickey asks softly as he sits back down next to her. "Owen mentioned that your return was a bit a rough and I can't imagine seeing him again was very easy."   
  
Oh she was going to kill him. She'd told Owen not to say a single word to Mickey and Jake about what had happened. Hopefully he'd at least kept his promise to keep what he found out had happened while she was with the Doctor secret or she'd throttle him right there.   
  
_ "Rose!"  _

_She gasps and stumbles forward into the arms of the man worriedly shouting her name. Her landings haven't been this sloppy in months but she supposes that is what happens when one can barely stand and had to leave immediately or risk causing a paradox because she couldn't stand the thought of having to leave when she'd finally found him._

 _Realizing quickly that she arms supporting her are clad in a lab coat and not leather and that the voice that had been urgently repeating her name was certainly no rough Northern burr, she scrambles back to free herself from his grip. She doesn't want anyone's touch marring the memory of her Doctor's hands upon her._

 _"'m alright, Owen," she insists quickly._

 _"You don't look it," he replies bluntly._

 _"I just activated the canon a bit too quickly and didn't have my balance," she explains as she forces herself to stand up straight. "Nothing to worry about."_

 _Owen raised an eyebrow, clearly not believing a word of it. "This Doctor of yours better be worth it," he says after a moment._

 _Rose tries not to blush. "He's our only hope of stopping the stars from going out."_

 _"And you've been trying to find your way back to him since long before then," he points out as he gestures for her to sit. As soon as she does he grabs her wrist to check her pulse. "Your heart's racing," he adds. "Where'd you end up this time then?"_

 _Rose frowns. "Somewhere in France. Paris, I think."_

 _"Paris? If it were anyone but you I'd be asking if you'd gotten laid," he teases. When Rose can't help the blush that colors her cheeks, he laughs. "Hang on. You did, didn't you?" Owen tugs her jacket away from her throat, revealing the bruises and bite mark and gapes at her. "Didn't figure you for the type what with all the time you spend so focused on that Doctor of yours."_

 _"No, you just think that 'cause I turned you down," Rose grins, trying to change the topic._

 _Owen sighs. "I'm not as daft as Smith. You can't change the subject so easily."_

 _"Maybe you're just more used to rejection," she suggests._

 _"Very funny," he replies dryly. "I need to know if this is something we have to worry about. There's a lot more at stake than whether you get your boyfriend back. Who was it?"_

 _Rose bites her lip and refuses to meet his gaze. "It was him... the Doctor. But it wasn't the right time yet, so I couldn't ask him for help. He'd not met me yet. I couldn't risk a paradox."_

 _"So helping save the universe is too much to ask but a quickie is fair game?"_

 _"No," Rose shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. "It's just... well, he'd dropped hints about this having happened but I didn't understand at the time. Or maybe they only became hints because I referenced them. Time loops still give me a bit of a headache even after years of this stuff."_

 _"You're a bit mad, you know," he tells her. He sounds rather irritated but the slight smile betrays him._

 _"I get that a lot," she replies easily._

 _"You're going to have to report that you saw him," he states. "If you don't want your dad hearing all about how you shagged him I'll leave that out of my report but he needs to know that this is actually going to work."_

 _"I know," Rose says with a sigh. "We're getting a lot closer. Hopefully it won't be much longer."_

 _"Right," Owen grabs the chart off the counter and turns to face her again. "Any issues or symptoms I should note that aren't a result of shagging an alien?"  
_   
"Rose?" Mickey questions again, startling her out of her thoughts.   
  
She forces a smile. "Sorry, Mick, I'm just tired. It was... hard, seeing him again, the old him and before he even knew who I was."   
  
Mickey nods sympathetically. "Don't know what you saw in him back when he was ol' big ears," he replies, probably trying to lighten the mood.   
  
Owen snorts and Rose glares at him. "Ah mate, you're just still pissed she chose him over you."    
  
"Oi," Mickey complains. "'s one thing to lose her because she's off exploring time and space with someone as brilliant as the Doctor, it's another to get shot down like you did when he's literally a universe away an' at the time there was pretty much no hope of ever seeing him again."   
  
"She's right here you know," Rose points out. Rose is suddenly reminded of snapping the same line on Platform One when Jabe was trying to discern her relationship with the Doctor. Their first date. She wonders if the end of the world is going to be the same in this universe. It won't be if she doesn't get back to the right version of him soon.    
  
Jake pats her on the shoulder, once again pulling her from her thoughts. "I'll get you another drink. We're supposed to be celebrating her success not arguing over which of you is more pathetic," he grins before hopping up to go order another round of drinks.   
  
Rose can't decide whether she wants to celebrate or cry. On the one hand she is thrilled that she got that chance to see him again but she can't help wondering if that is the last time she'll ever get to go see the first regeneration that she'd known. She loves the next version just as much of course, he's the same man after all but still when she was with the new him she couldn't help missing the old him sometimes. She misses both versions terribly.   
  
She wonders if he'll have regenerated again by the time she finds him. She'd still love him no matter what but she can't help hoping that he hasn't. Having found the old him she can't help worrying that she may have walked right past another even older version or perhaps future ones during her other attempts at finding him. She wants to think that a future version would have stopped her if he saw her but then she supposes maybe not. Time lines to preserve and all of that.    
  
She just wants to get back to him, permanently, no matter which version it is. But then there's that part of her that wouldn't mind seeing her first Doctor again even though she couldn't stay with him and she feels guilty because her main mission is to find the Doctor so he can help to stop the stars from going out. That is more important than stolen moments of desperation in Parisian back alleys after all.   
  
Her heart disagrees. Much to the disappointment of her friends, she is the first to leave the bar that night. She thinks they'll have more fun celebrating her almost success without her there though since all she wants to do is be alone and remember. Tomorrow she will do her best to put these thoughts aside and focus again on the mission. She hopes since she came so close today Pete will allow her to start testing the canon even more frequently now.


End file.
